10 things you might not know about Chicago murders

Mark JacobTribune staff reporter

Chicago may be GQ magazine's City of the Year, but others refer to it as Murder City. As we near year's end, homicides are up nearly 17 percent over 2007 and the death toll is pushing 500, about the same body count as in New York City, which has nearly three times the population. Here are 10 facts about foul play in Chicago and the suburbs:

1. The first murder conviction based on fingerprint evidence occurred in Chicago. When Thomas Jennings broke into a South Side house in 1910 and was confronted, he killed the owner and fled. But his fingerprints remained--on a freshly painted railing outside the house.

2. Henry Spencer, who bilked and murdered a tango teacher near west suburban Wheaton, was hanged in August 1914, just as World War I began (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). Chicago Daily News reporter Ben Hecht, covering the hanging, got a wire from his editor: "Omit all gruesome details. ... The world has just gone to war." The acerbic Hecht wired back: "Will try to make hanging as cheerful and optimistic as possible."

3. In 1919- 33, more than 160 Chicago police officers died in the line of duty, an average of nearly one a month.

4. Mob-connected race track operator Ed O'Hare cut a deal with federal authorities in the 1930s: If he informed on organized crime, his son Butch would be appointed to the Naval Academy. When the mob learned of the father's treachery, he was shot to death. The son became a Navy flier, won the Congressional Medal of Honor during World War II, and disappeared in the Pacific during a mission. O'Hare International Airport is named for the son, but it owes something to his crooked but loyal father as well.

5. A century ago, only men were allowed on juries. That changed for several reasons. One was the desire to extend rights to women. Another was the need to prevent women from getting away with murder. The musical "Chicago" highlighted two cases in the 1920s in which female killers escaped justice. Before that came Nellie Higgs, who was seen boarding an Illinois Central train in 1914 and shooting her lover in the back, but evaded punishment by declaring, "My mind is a blank." She became the 17th female murder suspect acquitted in a decade. A prosecutor complained that any female killer could "shed a few tears and cast a few wistful glances at the jury, and she will be acquitted."

6. Richard Speck's murder of eight nurses wasn't the Sun-Times' lead story the next day. The July 15, 1966, paper featured another breaking story: West Side rioting in which several police officers were wounded. The Tribune led with the nurse murders but was similarly conflicted. Its lead headline was "SEARCH FOR MASS KILLER," and underneath was the headline "Six Policemen Shot on West Side"--representing two stories that had nothing to do with each other.

7. Chicago's murder count is way down from the early 1990s, but the killings are harder to solve these days. The "clearance rate" was around 70 percent back then, compared to about 60 percent in recent years, similar to the national rate. The slippage isn't necessarily the police's fault. Experts say an increasing number of homicides are committed by strangers, and more involve gangs with a strict code of silence.

8. After John Wayne Gacy was executed in 1994 for killing 33 boys and young men, his brain was given to psychiatrist Helen Morrison, who kept it in the basement of her Chicago home.

9. Near the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Oak Street, a 7-year-old named Dantrell Davis was shot to death on his way to school in 1992. Even before that, the area had a murderous history. In the 1910s, when the neighborhood was Italian instead of African-American, the intersection was known as Death Corner. In a 15-month period, 38 people were killed in the area by the Black Hand, extortionists who threatened kidnapping, arson and murder if they were not paid off.

10. The most famous murder in Chicago history was the killing of 14-year-old Bobby Franks by graduate students Nathan Leopold (right) and Richard Loeb, who attempted the "perfect crime." The 1924 killing took place in the South Side's Kenwood neighborhood about a block from where President-elect Barack Obama lives today. Anti-Obama conspiracy bloggers, take note. For one thing, Obama has never denied involvement. And, sure, his birth certificate says he wasn't born until 37 years later, but who can trust that?

Sources: "Fabulous Chicago" by Emmett Dedmon, "Return to the Scene of the Crime" by Richard Lindberg, "The Crime of the Century" by Hal Higdon, "Paddy Whacked" by T.J. English, chicagopolice.org, "State Trooper" by Marilyn Olsen and Tribune news services.